


Cookies and Candies

by DetectiveRoboRyan



Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Children, F/F, Fluff, Puppy Love, Smol Babs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-30
Updated: 2015-06-30
Packaged: 2018-04-06 22:33:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4239093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DetectiveRoboRyan/pseuds/DetectiveRoboRyan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Having your birthday forgotten kind of sucks, especially when you're ten.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cookies and Candies

Emmeryn didn’t know what she wanted, but it wasn’t this.  
  
She wanted something more like normal kids had. Birthday parties with friends and cake and laughter in the house, because everyone knew their house was the best place for a birthday party, especially for a tenth one. Though it wasn’t like Emm had very many friends to invite, she liked the idea. Phila could come, and Frederick, and maybe that one girl from the library who smiled at her that one time. She’d get blue and green balloons because those were her favorite color and tape them to the front door so people knew that was where the party was, and they’d eat normal cake (or maybe even a cookie cake, she’d allow that) inside and talk and laugh play games and do things friends did until it was time for her guests to leave. She’d even let Chrom join in until it was his bedtime.  
  
Ten was an important birthday, everyone knew that. Every kid in her fourth grade class talked excitedly about their tenth birthdays, because it meant you Weren’t A Kid Anymore and you were Pretty Much A Grownup.  
  
Winter break had since started, which meant extra trouble for Frederick’s mother cleaning up mud and slush tracked in on rubber boots and a spike in heating bills to make sure Emmeryn’s mother didn’t fall ill. Emm considered Frederick’s mother a better mother than her own, really, mostly because Frederick’s mother actually bothered talking to her about things other than the future everyone seemed to expect her to take. Especially since her father died in the previous months, at this point it was all anybody could talk about. Of course she was going to go to college to be the school superintendent, it was in her blood. Of course she was.  
  
Emmeryn was ten. She wanted to be a mail carrier, or a witch. She didn’t want to be a superintendent, because despite the name, it wasn’t super at all. It was stuffy and boring and gross.  
  
It’d been a month and a half since her father died, Christmas was in two days, and everyone had been too busy to remember her birthday except for Chrom.  
 And Chrom didn’t count, he was only four and had given her a cookie he’d stolen from the jar while gnawing on another and grinning stupidly. It was the same cookie that was wrapped carefully in a napkin and stuck into her coat pocket, because even if Chrom didn’t count and she didn’t care _that_ much about the presents, it still did matter. She’d eat it later.  
  
Emmeryn was in somewhat of an odd situation for her, because she’d never been this far from the school. It looked kind of familiar, because she’d taken a field trip to the art museum in third grade, but other than that, Emm had no idea where she was, at least not in relation to her house. She knew she must’ve been very far away, because the bus ride to the art museum had felt like at least three hours. (It was a bit less than one.)  
  
Maybe it was rash or stupid, and maybe she hadn’t thought it through, but Emmeryn had run away from home.  
  
She wasn’t entirely sure where she was going— her best friend lived somewhere nearby, she thought, probably. She’d only ever been to Phila’s house once, and it didn’t look that different from the rest of the houses on the street. Decently sized, made of red brick with tar roofs and with iron staircases leading down the side and tiny little strips of yard out front. There wasn’t really anywhere like that out where she was, that she could tell, though, so that was a bust.  
  
Really, Emm just felt miserable.  
  
She had found herself a bench near a playground to sit on and think a bit, though she wasn’t sure how much more of that she could do, because the sun was going down and even with her warm coat, she was starting to get cold. The cookie in her pocket wasn’t really warm anymore, but she didn’t care. Why should she, anyway? No one seemed to care about her.  
  
Emm swung her legs idly, wondering how long she’d been sitting out here, staring at her knees. The toes of her boots scuffed the slush-covered sidewalk just barely, just enough to make a scraping sound. She wondered if anyone would notice she was gone. It wasn’t like she’d made a big deal about it— she’d just left right after school, mumbling something about going to get candy at the store, and then taken the bus as far as her pocket change could pay. And then she’d walked and walked until her feet started to hurt, and finally stopped to rest on the bench. She was kind of cold, but not that cold, and not hungry enough to start eating the cookie in her pocket.  
  
The slight squeaking of a bike that needed a checkup made her aware of the fact she wasn’t alone, but she didn’t really think it worth investigating until she heard the crashing sound of the bicycle being quickly dismounted and the sound of running footsteps towards her bench.  
  
“Emm?” she heard someone say, and she looked up.  
  
She sighed, curling her fingers in her pockets. She hadn’t expected for Phila to find her, even if she’d tried to find her house at first. And now what was she going to say? Some garbage about being out for a walk? She lived in a fancy gated community on the other side of the city, not even Chrom would buy that— and Chrom was remarkably dense, even for a preschooler.  
  
Phila looked concerned as she left her bike against a tree and stopped, a foot away from Emm and her wallowing in self-pity. She was all scruffy hair and band-aids on her hands, her hat far too big and falling off to one side, knobby knees and bruised shins and ruby-red eyes wide in concern. She sat next to Emm on the bench, bending forward to look Emm in the face, and Emm looked back at her knees.  
  
“Are you okay?” was the first thing out of Phila’s mouth. Emm didn’t want to respond, but she knew she had to.  
  
“Not really,” Emmeryn mumbled, lowering her head so the fabric of her scarf covered her cheeks.  
  
“What are you even doing out here?” Phila said next. “Is someone with you? It’s kind of late for you to be out, you know.”  
  
“I could say the same to you,” Emm brought up, finally lifting her head and looking back to Phila. She was mostly dodging the question, admittedly.  
  
Phila shrugged a little, tugging at her hat. “I live in the neighborhood, unlike you. Did you get tired of your family?”  
  
“A little bit,” Emm muttered. “They forgot my birthday.”  
  
Phila frowned angrily. “That’s dumb,” she decided. “Even if they _do_ have a lot happening, that’s no excuse to just forget about you! Everyone knows that the most important memories form before adolescence. I’ll make you the best birthday ever!”  
  
“Phi, that isn’t really—“ Emm tried to calm her down, but Phila wasn’t having that, and had stood up and put her hands on her hips determinedly.  
  
“No objections!” Phila announced. “Even if it takes all night, I’m gonna make your birthday the best day ever, even if there’s not much day left! Come on, I have an idea.”  
  
Phila pulled Emm’s hands out of her pockets and pulled her up, grinning madly with a sparkle in her eyes Emm knew she couldn’t fight. Phila tugged her over to the bike leaning against the tree, with its headlight on and a duffle bag full of smaller boxes on the back.  
  
“I’m delivering candy my mom made,” Phila explained, grabbing the bike and throwing her leg over the crossbar. “You can help, it’ll be fun! And probably a lot better than sitting out there in the cold.”  
  
“That sounds dangerous,” Emm commented, but a grin was spreading across her face whether she liked it or not. “Phi, are you sure about this?”  
  
“Positive!” Phila said assuredly, shifting the backpack on her back. “Now get on, we’re wasting daylight.”  
  
Emm didn’t argue with that, sitting on the back of the bike with the big bag in her lap and gripping the bike with her other hand. “Don’t crash, alright?”  
  
“I won’t, I won’t,” Phila said with a grin, starting to pedal down the sidewalk.  
  
Candy delivery wasn’t too hard. In fact, Emm found it fun! She’d get off the bike and ring the doorbell to deliver the candy while Phila waited on the bike, and sometimes someone would answer and Emm would grin widely while giving them their candy box, and wave while she and Phila left for the next house. They must’ve gone all over town, up hills and down driveways and over speed bumps and under bridges and through puddles, all until all the names on Phila’s list were crossed off and it was long after dark, the sky above dotted with stars. Both their noses and cheeks were flushed from the cold and chapped from the wind, and though Emm’s pale lips were blue, she didn’t care.  
  
Phila stopped the bike outside her house and got off. “I guess you should go home now,” she mumbled, shrugging a little. “I mean, it isn’t that late, it just looks it because the days are short. So you could probably stay a little longer, if you’re okay with that.”  
  
“Can we go up to the roof?” Emmeryn asked, taking Phila’s hand. The roof of Phila’s house was one of the best spots to look at the stars, at least Emm thought so, and she could tell they’d look incredible that night because of how clear the sky was. Emm always liked looking at the stars, but it was even better with Phila.  
  
Phila nodded, blaming the reddening of her cheeks just then on the cold. Leaving the bike, she led Emmeryn through the fence and up the stairs on the outside of the house, feet clattering on the iron grating.  
  
They sat with their backs against the big heating unit on the roof, the metal warming the surrounding air. The stars were brilliant, even with the city lights, and the moon looked like it was close enough to touch. Emm couldn’t see a sky like that from her balcony.  
  
Phila had music, for this kind of situation. Emm put in the left earbud and Phila the right, and Emm swayed her head gently to the beat. Phila’s hand still clutched hers, but gently, like she was worried about Emm getting snatched away at any minute but didn’t want to scare her by squeezing her hand too tight.  
  
It started to snow then, tiny flakes dusting Phila’s hat and her silvery bangs. It’d be piled up at least eight inches by morning, but then it was just a dusting of powder that caught on the knitting of Emm’s tights and felt tiny and cold when they landed on her nose.  
  
“I have an umbrella!” Phila blurted into what had previously been companionable silence, fumbling with her bag and pulling out a red umbrella.  
  
“Usually people use umbrellas when it rains, not necessarily when it snows,” Emm brought up as Phila opened it over their heads.  
  
“Well, yeah,” Phila admitted. “But I don’t want you to get cold. And snow falling on you would make you cold, and also wet, which is really kind of a horrible combination to deal with. And then you could potentially get sick, which would suck and be kind of hard to explain to your parents.”  
  
Emm just listened to her talk, though she wasn’t really absorbing what she was saying. Phila’s face went from mildly sheepish to thoughtful to the realization of the consequences, and Emm found it cute. Phila, in general, was very cute, at least Emm thought so. Because they were best friends, and that was alright for best friends to think, right? It just took her a minute to remember she was expected to respond.  
  
“Oh,” she said with a start. “Right, of course. I don’t really want to be the one to say I’m sick because I stayed out all night delivering packages of candy and watching the stars. That’d be awkward.”  
  
Phila nodded, then went back to looking at the sky. Emm felt the heat of her cheeks melt the dusting of snowflakes, and she rubbed the droplets of water away with her coat sleeve. Why was she blushing so much? It was just Phila, and even if they _were_ holding hands, and sort of close, they were just doing things best friends did, right?  
  
So what, though? Best friends could do this sort of thing if they wanted to, and if they couldn’t, Emm wanted her and Phila to be something that could. Swallowing her fear, she leaned over and kissed Phila’s wind-chapped cheek, then rested her head on her shoulder, their hands linked. There, she’d done it, and she was still alive. Hopefully Phila wouldn’t hate her for it.  
  
But Phila didn’t hate her for it, and even though Emm could feel heat radiating from her best friend’s cheeks, she felt Phila gently lean her head to rest on Emm’s, squeezing her hand gently. There were no words exchanged— now wasn’t the time for them, and even then Emm didn’t trust herself to not mess it up by talking.   
  
And as she sat there on the roof of her best friend’s house, with a flushed face and wet socks and a yet-uneaten cookie in her pocket, her back to a heating unit and her feet to the asphalt roofing, Emm couldn’t help but think that this birthday, for all the trouble that’d been happening as of late, was the best one she’d ever had.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm writing holiday fics in June, SUE ME.


End file.
